Writer’s Digest November Poem-a-Day 2017 Challenge #25. Theme: Remix

So I went back through the poems I’d written this month and chose five titles (hence the underlines), implementing them in my newest creation.

The Town that Cried Atonement

She lived in this stranger world
where a life, in 7 days,
ended not with a day of rest,
but in an atonement day.

Everything would be closed,
and everyone in the town of Cantonement
would meet at the Universal Church,
where the newest child sacrifice
would be made—
for all babies were born into sin,
but the unborn were worshipped
as little angels.

For they saw this as not only saving their souls,
but saving the planet,
their stem cells saving
those who saved the planet.

These little beings had no voice,
but were the property
of the vessels in which they gestated.

But then Vera Donna
chose to be selfish, they said,
and retain her property rights—
so that her property
would grow,
and perhaps yield more
after its own kind
and
after her kind—
the closest thing to
immortality
on earth.

And when she told them the story
of That Final Atonement,
there was joy in the limitless grace
that released this town
from these bloody offerings,
reminiscent Old Testament times.